John B. Shea
Sept. 28, 2005
Catholic Insight
Reproduced with Permission
Language is a means we use to communicate some aspect of reality. In speaking about science and the practice of medicine, what we say must be in keeping with the facts. Because language has great power to do good or evil, it must convey the truth, and that truth must not be concealed or denied by ambiguity, euphemism, falsehood or obscure terminology.
The following are a few examples of ways in which the scientific and medical establishments, by the misuse of language, in recent years have misled the public.
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When human life begins: Over a hundred years ago, Wilhelm His, the father of human embryology, demonstrated that a human being comes into existence at conception, when a sperm fuses with an ovum and forms a one-celled organism, a human zygote. That fact is confirmed by the science of human embryology to this day. In spite of this, since the 1970s, certain physicians and research workers have promoted the notion that it is not until 5-14 days later when an embryo is implanted in the womb, that a human life begins. Before this, they say only a 'pre-embryo' exists. Some admit that it is an embryo but it is not a person, a philosophical notion, not a scientific one. The concept of a 'pre-embryo' was dreamed up in an attempt to morally justify the use of drugs that impede implantation of the embryo- e.g. the morning-after pill and the modern low dose contraceptive pills - which frequently act by impeding implantation and therefore causing an abortion. It is also used to justify research on in vitro embryos and genetic selection of in vitro embryos (eugenics.)
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Pregnancy, in fact, begins at conception, which occurs in the fallopian tube. A current falsehood spread by many physicians and pharmaceutical companies is that a woman in not pregnant until implantation of the embryo in the uterus. Yet physicians do not deny that a patient can have a fallopian tube or abdominal pregnancy.
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In a further effort to justify abortifacient contraception, the embryo has been renamed 'an activated egg' or 'a clump of stem cells.' Some go so far as to abolish the word 'embryo' and say that at implantation, a 'fetus' comes into existence. In truth, the term 'fetus' refers to the unborn from the eighth week to the end of pregnancy.
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Cloning: This is the reproduction of a human being by any means other that the fusion of sperm and ovum. At present it is not politically correct to use the word 'cloning' because the public tends to associate it with the formation of monsters. Therefore the terms 'stem cell research' and 'nuclear transfer research' are substituted.
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Breast cancer: The medical profession and cancer societies blatantly deny the clearly established scientific facts that abortion and the so-called contraceptive pill increase the risk of breast cancer significantly.
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Abortion is the killing of the unborn by physical or chemical means. In an effort to blunt this reality, the term has been replaced by euphemisms such as 'therapeutic dilatation and curettage' and 'termination of pregnancy.'
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Terminal illness: This is commonly understood to indicate that an illness cannot be cured and will probably result in death within one year. The patient is not necessarily in danger of imminent death, that is, death within one or two days. Some physicians label an illness 'terminal' in order to cease treatment and even basic human care, such as hydration and nutrition. This regimen is euphemistically called 'palliative care.' Synonyms for palliative care are 'terminal sedation' and 'comfort care.' In these cases the patient may be dehydrated and subjected to morphine injections until death. Terry Schiavo experienced this form of care.
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Death: Death occurs after the cessation of respiration, cardiac activity, brain activity and the function of the bodily functions as a whole. Since the 1960s, when organ donation and transplantation first occurred, death has been redefined. In 1968, 'brain death' was defined as a coma that would probably lead to death within 48 hours, (Harvard Ad Hoc Committee Report.) It was not defined as equivalent to death. The medical profession, however, used the Committee Report as a green light to allow organ retrieval and transplantation, despite the fact that there was not then, and still is not now, any scientific consensus on the criteria to be used to make a diagnosis of brain death, or even that brain death and actual death are in fact, the same. In 1992, in Pittsburgh, a protocol for the declaring that a patient had reached 'cardiac death' was established. For a person in coma as a result of head injury or stroke and on a ventilator could be pronounced 'hopeless' and treatment 'futile.' The ventilator could be removed with the surrogate's permission. Following that, and further surrogate permission, the patient could be declared to have suffered 'cardiac death' as soon as the heart stopped beating and then, the organs removed. This is done despite the fact that no doctor can be certain that such a patient could not recover from coma and that there is no agreement among physicians and scientists that a patient is in fact dead when cardiac death is declared. It should be remembered that a patient declared to have suffered 'cardiac death' is not yet even 'brain dead.' The inventors of 'cardiac death' hope to increase the number of organs for donation by 25-30%.
Why play word games?
Since the eighteenth century, the western world has been in the grip of atheism. In the meantime, some countries, fearing chaos, and motivated by tyrannical ideologies, resorted to brutal regimes such as Communism and Fascism. In the more democratic countries, in Europe and north America, Christian culture has been opposed by morally relativist and utopian ,but subtly tyrannical capitalist or socialist regimes.. Divine law and the natural moral law have been largely replaced by an ethics based on pragmatic notions of 'justice', 'autonomy', and 'beneficence' that are entirely defined by the State. Richard Rorty, a philosopher who does not believe in objective moral truth has stated nonetheless, that by the use of rhetoric "one can change one's desires into the truth." Pragmatic ethics holds that he who makes the definitions wins the debate, and that "public debate must be shepherded and fostered by an elite that is prepared to seize rhetorical primacy, and mold existing institutions, or create new ones, for that purpose." (Pragmatic Bioethics, pp. 181-190). Witness the political dominance of judicial interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms over public moral practice in Canada.
The powerful elites who rule in the western world have big agendas that include world population control and access to world resources among other things. It is in the search for power to control public debate and public opinion that they play their word games of obfuscation, euphemism and falsification of scientific fact. Many in the medical profession simply follow suit.
What can we do?
It is the duty of the Catholic Church with her social teaching to "proclaim the Gospel and make it present in the complex network of social relations, thus enriching and permeating society itself with the Gospel." (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, p. 28.) A great effort to learn and to communicate the Church's moral teaching and gain an adequate understanding of the relevant science and cultural aspects will have to be made by Catholics in the various professions, business, finance, science, the judiciary and politics. In this effort, each must, as St. Paul told the Philippians, "never act in a spirit of factiousness É and to study the welfare of others, not his own." Worldly utopias are a diabolical illusion. Catholics and other Christians must, each in his or her own walk of life, try to manifest to others, by prayer, work and example, that, as St. Augustine said "Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart shall not rest until it rests in thee." (Confessions Book 1. Chapter 1. No. 1.)
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